THE BRITISH
STRING QUARTET:
Jessie Snow (violin); Alan Bartlett (violin) ; Ernest Tomlinson (viola);
Edward Robinson (violoncello)
MERIEL ST. CLAIR GREEN (mezzo-soprano)
SLAVONIC FOLK SONGS are better known to British listeners in arrangements presented by Dvorak and other Slavonic composers, and as tunes upon which Slavonic composers have based their Slavonic works. Not alone Dvorak. but Smetana, Janacek, and quite recently Weinberger, the composer of Schwanda the Bagpiper, have all made extensive use of the very rich folk-song material peculiar to the Slav races.
QUARTET
Scherzo and Notturno Borodin Allegro Gliire
THESE TWO MOVEMENTS are from Borodin's Second Quartet in D, composed in 1888. In the Scherzo there are two distinct moods, one bustling and vigorous, and the other sensuous and lyrical, the theme of which is closely related to one in the Polovtsienne Dances in Prince Igor, and yet slightly reminiscent of the melody sung by the Flower Maidens in Wagner's Parsifal (although there is no suggestion of plagiarism). The Notturno, the third movement of the Quartet, is often played separately from the whole, and is an example of a thoroughly beautiful and expressive lyric.
REINHOLD GLIÈRE died in 1926 at the age of fifty-one. He wrote a fair amount of chamber music, but only two Quartets. His popularity amongst chamber music players was perhaps greater before the War than it is now. His idiom belonged to a generation that had Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov as its models.
, at 16.45 (4-45)